Tours to watch for

About our poll

Earlier this year, we published a list of 240 bird species that occur in the United States and Canada and asked readers of BirdWatching magazine to choose the 10 that they wanted to see most.

We derived our list from the authoritative ABA Checklist. We included all rare, casual, and accidental species (ABA Checklist Codes 3, 4, and 5); regularly occurring North American species that are not widespread (Codes 1 and 2); and one species that was once dangerously close to extinction but today is surviving in captivity and struggling to become naturally re-established (Code 6). We omitted most species not native to North America.

Nearly 900 of our readers participated. Their 10 most-wanted birds include three owls, a handful of endangered species, a clown-faced puffin, a blue-footed seabird that is rarely spotted in the United States, and America’s one and only condor.

We presented the 10 most-wanted birds in the August 2013 issue of BirdWatching. Our article included not only the descriptions, population info, and eBird maps above but also 10 things you didn’t know about each species.

You should do a lot more research about the Puffin tours and viewing. You have missed a very important place. It is called Bird Island in Elliston Newfoundland. A boat is not needed just a short walk to the viewing area. There is no admission charge just a donation box. Also sometime in late July they have a Puffin Festival and serve their famous Jiggs Dinner homemade at a very reasonable cost.
I am not from Newfoundland but have visited here on more than one occasion.

birdwatchingdaily

Thanks for the lip… er, tip. You saw that we included a link to the Witless Bay Ecological Preserve, didn’t you? We didn’t include the Puffin Festival since it occurred well before our August issue went to press.